Firstly, i have owned only 3 DAC's at this point in my life and Moondrop Dawn was the 2nd. I was absolutely convinced that this would sound somewhat same as my Hidisz S3 Pro. It does and it doesn't.
Firstly, there's even more power, which means that i can listen at even lower volumes than before, i'm at like 10% volume on Samsung S21 FE and on PC Windows volume is 4 or 6. Out of a 100. SICK! I'm 100% convinced that you DON'T NEED A DESKTOP DAC if you have this and you only listen to IEM's or not absolutely hardest to drive headphones. Period. Just plug this into USC-C or USB-A (via adapter) and you're done. Just remember to push sound quality as up as you can on whatever OS you're operating on.
On the go it seems to want very little juice to do it's sound processing black magick. I have not noticed anything crazy battery-wise. The fault is on the Samsung's side more than Moondrop's, the battery on S21 FE is not what you would call a beast.
For sound quality, it depends very much on the IEM's/headphones you use, but sound is full, rich and on the warmer side. Very pleasing and versatile. No shortage of bass!
Only drawback for on the go listening is Android OS, which resamples everything to 48kHz - which isn't this DACs fault by a long shot.
Compared to this, Hidisz is more relaxed and easy going, but this is not harsh by any means. Very "easy" and effortless for any genre, everything is just better - especially if you compare to having no DAC at all! That is not even comparable, really.
This DAC is easy to recommend, i think if you are not in the dongle DAC game, you really should be and at this pricepoint - there's really no question is this worth it... It absolutely is. If you listen to wired IEM's/headphones, i think you absolutely have to get one.
